Masters of the Air
 

Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks looking to film new aviation blockbuster in Lincolnshire | Lincolnshire Live

American aviation advisers to a new Second World War blockbuster series by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks are visiting Lincolnshire to get a flavour of our historic USAAF connections.

Masters of the Air is a ten-eposide mini-series which forms the third intalment in their triology after Band of Brothers and Pacific. This time the story focuses on the American daylight bomber raids over occupied territory, launched from Norfolk and Suffolk. Scenes will be shot at UK locations yet to be decided but officials here want to suggest that Lincolnshire also gets in on the action, given our county's strong wartime links with the USAAF.....

Don Miller, author of Masters of the Air, on which the new series is based, and scriptwriter John Orloff will be touring key aviation sites in Lincolnshire linked to the USAAF on Friday, February 24, in a tour organised by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire........

Shouldn't that be Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire really ??

Arc

Its is the publications location.

It would also depend on which locations can be used for filming. How many in East Anglia and further south haven't been built over, surrounded by obtrusive structures, active sites or in controlled airspace?

ORAC that will be very few................

The Spielberg people were at Duxford on Monday.................. apparently it's 75 years since the 'Friendly Invasion'

Arc

No doubt involving a complete rewrite of history to show the murricans as the sole participants and sole winners of the War...

Again.

Presumably to have a look at a B17?

The "Unsinkable aircraft carrier" ! But they found our damp weather a bit discouraging, at first.

(Reported exasperated comment at the time): "Why don't they just cut the [barrage balloon] cables and let the goddam place sink ?"

D.

The Brits popped up in quite a few places in Band of Brothers, to be honest.

Remember the Memphis Belle was shot at that fenland airfield in Lincolnshire :)

Binbrook long gone of course................

Arc

Not the sole, but I think we have to agree, the major participants and winners. The Brits stopped Adolph winning (Battle of Britain), but couldn't have won it without the Americans. Who of course couldn't have invaded Europe without the unsinkable aircraft carrier, which wouldn't have been there if...circular argument.

I've often thought that once the B17, P51 and Glenn Miller were in the UK, Adolph should have quietly given up..there was no way he was going to win.

Before I get flamed, I'm as patriotic Brit as anyone, and readily acknowledge the contributions of other nations in the struggle.

I wonder if they will touch on the 'over sexed ,over paid and over here' part of their stay? My wife's grandmother, Suffolk born and bred says, 'ooh we had a lovely time during the war'. She gave me a book called East Anglia 1943, which has several references to local press reports regarding the behaviour of local girls and Gi's and morality concerns at that time. Even the mayor of Bury st Edmund's got involved, publishing an open letter to his citizens on morality!

Whilst I was the result of wholly British "immorality", my adopted brother was the result of a liaison between an American airman and a then 16 year old Cambridgeshire lass, and since his 71st birthday was earlier this week, I suspect over-enthusiastic celebration of "Victory in Europe"

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There were some strapping young lads in Bassingbourn village and Royston in the 50's/60's, who didn't appear to come from purely local stock

"Not the sole, but I think we have to agree, the major participants and winners."

And there was me thinking the Red Army arrived in Berlin on a coach trip.................

I thought the "Masters of the Air" name was changed to "The Mighty Eighth" a few years ago?

Trailer here

A subject which has been argued over endlessly, but as this thread is mainly concerned with air operations, and in particular the bombing offensive, it has to be said that the the Soviet Air Force played a very minor part in strategic bombing operations. It was primarily a tactical battlefield force, and was undoubtedly very effective in support of the Red Army, but there is no doubt that the Soviet advance Westward profited greatly from much weakened German defences, thanks to the combined efforts of the US 8th Army Air Force and RAF Bomber Command.

A VVSO I once met and who had fought his way from Normandy to Hamburg said when asked:

"The British bought time - if we'd surrendered in 1940 the US would never have come into Europe and the Russians would have been pushed way over the Urals. The Russians bought space and brought manpower - we'd never have won in Europe without the meat-grinder on the Eastern Front. The Americans brought technology and manpower - we'd still be sitting here staring across the Channel without them. Without all three fighting together the German would have probably won......."

Pretty fair summary I think

Boy you must be fun at parties. So it is too hard to imagine that an American production, focusing on an American unit would focus on the on the Americans? Band of Brothers, Pacific, Memphis Belle, Saving private Ryan, and even the stinkers like Pearl Harbor and Red Tails etc. were unit focused movies, so naturally focused on the American side of the story- but all seem to include the allies where appropriate.


I would not expect a movie focused on USAAF daylight raids to spend much time on Spitfire and Lancaster units nor the Russian front.


Nor would I complain that Dam Busters was too UK focused.


So while there does seem to be a bias for more American production to focus on American involvement in the war, that may be more due to demand and interest- not a attempt to rewrite history. Interested to hear which films/shows you see as attempts to re-write history...